


Heated Words

by HDLynn



Series: The Caretaker Series [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguments, F/M, Fluff, a Mandalorian sized bucket-load of pining, apologizes, blink and you miss it allusion to masturbation, communication issues and resolutions, emotions are complicated for the emotionally constipated, helmet loopholes, light cursing, mutual pining idiots, one (1) touch-starved Din (and probably the reader too tbh), some sexual themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25474954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HDLynn/pseuds/HDLynn
Summary: After having to spend the night huddled together in one bed for warmth, things get complicated between you and Din.
Relationships: Din Djarin / reader, Din Djarin / you
Series: The Caretaker Series [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1720672
Comments: 11
Kudos: 168





	Heated Words

You were in a haze. A cozy, warm, safe haze. Din’s arms were wrapped around you, his body snug against yours. The man was like a furnace and his breath hot on the back of your neck in the darkened room. You could have stayed like that for hours, days even. More than contented to lay there and let the galaxy contract around you and dissolve away until it was just the two of you in this consecrated place.

The universe, seemingly, had different plans and you felt him stir slightly behind you, his breathing not as deep and slow any longer. But he kept his arms around you, holding on so tightly you could feel his heartbeat.

“You awake, Cyar’ika?” Din asked, his face still nestled in your hair. He sounded more awake than you ever felt when you first got up. 

In the back of your mind, you recognized that you still needed to ask him what cyar’ika meant, but the question could wait. His unmodulated voice was deep and warm, like molten sugar, it was a downright distraction. The kind of distraction that swirled in your stomach and then curled up into your lungs, making your next breath hitch. That sort of distraction.

You hummed an affirmative, not ready to speak. As if speaking would somehow break the spell currently cast over the dark bedroom, though you couldn’t place why. 

“Good,” he breathed out and released you long enough to turn you over. His arms came back around you and pulled you in so that you both were chest to chest. His warm and solid thigh came between your legs in a confident and intimate manner while your hands linked together at the back of his neck. 

The embrace felt like it was the first time you both had been linked together thus, yet also it was if you had lost count of the times waking up with him. Even in the dark, you could feel him lean closer in and your stomach clenched in delicious anticipation. He was going to kiss you. 

Din’s hot breath ghosted over your lips and your eyes fluttered shut. Even as the spell of silence screamed at you to stay quiet, you couldn’t help it when his name slipped out from your lips and then — you woke up.

Blinking up at the metal ceiling in the darkness of your small room, the barest sliver of light coming in from the bottom of the door. You were not sharing a bed with Din and he was not about to kiss you. It had just been a dream. You wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Instead, you rolled over to hid your face in your pillow and whimpered into it.

This wasn’t the first time you had such a dream about your employer — Din Djarin — the taciturn yet impossibly gentle Mandalorian. You just had been having even…more...dreams like this lately. 

Dreams that had visited you almost every night since that night on that damn ice-covered planet, Sarna. Kriffing… and they were frustrating as hell. Always ending much too soon and not soon enough. Leaving you with just the very start of an ache in the pit of your stomach. An ache you couldn't seem to satisfy yourself.

The storm had lasted only the one night, not the several weeks that it could have been if it had been worse. Originally, you had been grateful when Din had gone out and freed up the frozen thruster panels and taken the _Razor Crest_ promptly to the closest town to get the heating system repaired. It had been so cold you had nearly cried when the systems were back online, but now you wished the storm had been longer, keeping Din in your bed. Even if you had been wearing about five layers of clothing, he had been close.

You wanted him close. Wanted him to hold you and listen as you spilled secrets you had held onto far too long and know that he could do that same with you. Wanted him between your legs, turning your flesh into fire so that you burned up entirely and then be remade by the steady touch of his strong hands.

Honestly, you were also starting to wonder if Din somehow knew what you were dreaming about, too. The Mandalorian had been so chaste with you on Sarna and here you were, wanting your nightly dreams to be _more_ lurid in nature while he seemed to have been avoiding you for the past several weeks.

It was a far cry from the muzzy memories you had of him when you both had shared the cot. You had woken up slightly when at one point in the night his arms had tightened and pulled you even closer into him. The memory of his breath hot on your neck had not been a dream even as slumber had reclaimed you. When you had woken up again, Din had been gone. The storm had let up and he had been outside freeing up the ship.

To have that…glimpse of his warmth. To have the knowledge that he had taken his helmet off in the same room with you, even if it had been dark, was like some sort of secret knowledge you hadn’t supposed to have been given access to. But since you couldn’t give that memory back, you had it stored up in your heart.

Now though… you were very sure he was avoiding you. Doing a surprisingly good job of it even on the small ship you were all stuck on together when in hyperspace, and doubly so when the ship was docked on a planet while he was hunting down bounties. Always telling you to “stay put with the kid” before ambling down the ramp, not even waiting to see if you had any response.

As Din landed on the latest planet, you steeled yourself to ask to head out to the market with him. You knew this planet was relatively safe, a back-water certainly, but it was no den of criminals.

“I have some supplies I need to get,” Din said as he lowered the ramp.

“Can we come this time? Please?” you ask, unable to hide hopefulness in your voice at being able to be off the _Razor Crest_ for a bit.

“Not here.”

The Mandalorian’s tone so was terse and short, it left you blinking in surprise as he went on his way down the ramp, again. Leaving you alone with the baby, again. Making you feel like the entirety of your shared repertoire from the past several months had been completely dismantled somehow and you didn’t know how to fix it.

You did know, however, that you were not about to let him walk all over you anymore. This was ridiculous, this was not going to work like…whatever this was now.

A tug at your boot brought you back into the present. Looking down you found your charge, your little Vert, looking doe-eyed up at you with a toy in hand.  
  
“Wanna play little one?” you asked, forcing a smile on your face.

The smile only remained fake until the little green alien babbled concern at you and shoved his large stuffed toy star up at you. Din had gotten it for the kid some time ago and it had been an instant favorite, it was always needing cleaning from often being stuffed into his mouth.

Kneeling down, you take the offered toy and thank Vert for sharing, “Thank you, buddy, are you trying to cheer me up?”

Vert babbled some more, his tiny green claws slapping at your knee.

“I don’t know either,” you say with a sigh, turning the stuffed toy over and over in your hands absentmindedly. “But I’m…I’m worried I did…something wrong somehow.”

~*~

Din didn’t return until late, you had already put the baby to bed after dinner and a bath. Part of you wondered if he had been planning on you being asleep, as well, since he had stiffened slightly at the sight of you reading over your holopad, leaned up against one of the larger packing crates with a blanket you had snagged from your room.

There was an instant you both were frozen looking at each other before he grunted something that just barely passed as a greeting. The Mandalorian practically sprinted past you and up the ladder to the cockpit before you could untangle yourself from the blanket.

You were left in the once again empty cargo bay, the holopad laying forgotten on the floor as you looked at the ladder he had just disappeared up with your mouth open. You closed your mouth with a click of teeth, your lips pressing into a firm line as you got up and stalked to the ladder and climbed up. This was getting kriffing ridiculous. 

You could tell the moment Din noticed you were standing in the doorway to the cockpit. The way his shoulders tensed you wouldn’t have noticed before, but after living with him for so long you saw it. You waited a beat for him to acknowledge your newly arrived presence in the cockpit, and yet he just sat there cleaning his armor. Apparently, you were going to have to start this off. Great. 

“Hey, can we talk?”

Din grunted while he pointedly didn’t look your way, “Not like I can stop you.” 

You bristled at that, “So, am I just supposed to just stay on the ship everywhere we go now? Am I not good enough to help you with a stupid market task?”

“You do help, you help me with the kid,” he stated tightly, continuing to clean the pauldron in his lap even though it looked more than clean to you.

“And what about the market? You used to let us come along, hell I went on my own other times and it was never an issue until recently,” you pointed out angrily. “Am I not allowed to help with that too? I know I’m not a big scary bounty hunter who just shoots my way through things, but I would rather know now if you just see me as the babysitter.”

Din stopped cleaning his armor and sighed heavily, as if he was about to explain something to a child. That sigh made your temper flare even hotter in your belly.

“You take care of the kid and I take care of the rest and make sure you both are safe,” Din stated plainly, but his next sentence dripped with condescension even through the modulator. “I clearly can’t do that if you are galavanting around.”

“Gal-galavanting?” you sputter out angrily and insulted. Since when had you ‘galavanted’ anywhere except where he took you? He was the one who was roving around, chasing one bounty and then the next. Hopping from one planet to another. 

“I think you just don’t like not having control over every kriffing little thing,” you hiss. You knew you were being cruel but you were too angry to care. “You can’t control every single situation, keeping us hostage in the _Crest_ isn’t a guarantee of anything.”

That earned you a glare, or what you figured was a glare when he whipped his head around to actually look at you for the first time during this whole conversation. There was a tense silence for several long moments, and you could tell he wanted to light into you, but anger had made you ballsy enough to not immediately cower under his glare. You stood firm and watched his fists clench and then unclench.

“I won’t force you to work for me. Once I handle this last bounty, I can take you back to your home planet,” Din said testily, looking back to his work on the pauldron before continuing, “I’ll find someone else to take care of the kid, it would be for the best for everyone.”

You felt slapped in the face by that statement, your chest squeezing tight. He was frustrated with whatever this current situation was, but you hadn’t let yourself think that Din wanted you gone. Now you could see it, you were just a replaceable addition to his tiny family. He must have picked up on your changing feelings for him and wanted nothing to do with them, that was why he had been avoiding you. You had been so stupid to not realize it before now.

Your stomach twisted in a devastated manner as if you were about to be sick. Closing your eyes tight against the hot prick of tears, you suddenly felt very alone and far from home. It was then you realized that you had started to see the rickety old ship as a kind of home. Yet it was being ripped away from you right when you had realized that.

“Oh…” you say dumbly, feeling like you had lost all the air from your lungs. Throat working hard to keep the hurt in check but failing, you felt sudden tears welling up in your eyes. “Yeah, for the best.”

You wanted to run to leave, but your feet remained planted where they were. You felt as if you were carved of lead as the computers running, soft hums and beeps, were the only sounds for several long, uncomfortable moments. Your kriffing conscience was already starting to eat you alive, having a foothold in you now the anger had fled.

“I’m sorry,” you said so quietly, after taking a deep breath. “I was cruel to say those things and there is no excuse for it.”

You saw Din stiffen in his chair, probably still angry at you but he didn’t say anything at all. The silence just made the words spill out even more, your hands clutching at the hem of your shirt, knuckles pulled sharp against your skin.

“I hope you can forgive me, but I understand if you can’t,” you continued, voice small. “I went about it in a shitty way. I just don’t want to be a burden, an obligation when I…” you weren’t able to go on, trying to keep your feelings in check. Trying to say just enough to feel purged of what you had been holding onto even if you already knew now that he didn’t reciprocate your feelings.

You jumped when Din suddenly stood up, looking at you with that emotionless visor and breathing like a winded blurg.

He put out a hand, palm down and fingers splayed, like you were a skittish animal about to bolt, as he took one step and then another towards you until he was right in front of your slightly trembling form.

Carefully, he pulled your hands away from the hem of your shirt, where you had twisted them in your distress. He held them in his gloved hands, the warmth of him gently sinking into your skin.

You didn’t want to look at him, knew if you did your face would be an open book. But you had to look at him, drawn to him like a moth to a flame when your name came through his helmet again, cracked and raw in a deeper way than just from what the modulator did.

“Sweet girl, I never meant to make you feel like an..an obligation,” he sounded disgusted with himself. “Kriff, I just want to make sure you’re safe, but all I seem to be able to do is get you hurt.”

“Din, you do keep me safe,” you say. “But I also want to help, you shouldn’t be alone in this. You and Vert…you matter so much to me.”

“Stay here.”

You blinked, that hadn’t been the response you had been anticipating.  
Din let go of your hands, leaving you even more confused, and went back to the controls. Flipping the highest UV shield setting on, blacking out the windows instantly, he turned off the main lights and all of the lights of the controls and switches, effectively plunging you both into darkness.

There was a metallic thunk, and you felt, rather than saw, Din come back over to you.

A warm, ungloved hand tenderly touched your cheek and then Din’s forehead, his actual warm forehead, was pressed to yours. Your heart leaped into your throat, he had taken off his helmet.

“Do you mean that?” he asked, his deep, unfiltered tone curling around you almost as physical as the touch of his hand on your cheek. There was a naked venerability in his voice and it propelled you to be brave in return.

“Yes, of course. I really care for both of you. In different ways,” you said with a small laugh, humor still being a familiar crutch in any emotionally stressful situation. “You matter to me so much and it scares me… but I don’t want to leave you,” you confessed, your voice becoming breathier now as Din’s thumb made small circles at the edge of your jawline. 

His touch fed an electric spark hiding under your skin that shot right into your very being, leaving you breathing hard. His scent enveloped you, he smelled of leather and gun oil, of salt and a bit of sweat, but he also smelled of the bitingly fresh pine and citrus smell of the soap he used. You leaned into the touch, hands reaching blindly in the dark to rest on top of his biceps, right between the armored areas.

“I don’t want you to leave either,” he said, almost reverently. “But I don’t want to force you to stay…when I can’t… I can barely protect the kid. Ner kar’ta, you _drown_ because I let us get trapped by a raging river, I barely got you back that time. Then, I couldn’t do anything on Sarna except make the situation worse. You both could have died so many times because of me, cyare.”

Your heart broke at that, for him.

“Din, I know you always do your best. And you did that on Sarna even when things didn’t work out how you wanted, and you did save me on that riverbank despite your creed. I’m alive _because_ of you. If this is what we are doing, we are going to be doing it together. If we don’t we’ll only resent each other, like with you deciding on your own that the ‘best’ way to keep me and Vert safe is to have us on lockdown,” you chided gently. “But we can figure it out along the way. And we don't need to figure it all out right now, we can take it slow, right?”

“Yeah… yeah, I’d like that,” Din let out a steadying breath as if a huge weight had been lifted off of him. Because it had been, he did not and should not have to shoulder such things alone. It wasn’t fair to him, or you for that matter, for him to be making assumptions about both of you. But you understood why he did it, you hadn't been communicating clearly, either, leaving his mind to fill in the gaps. Maker, you both were idiots.

As the both of you had been talking, you must have unconsciously shifted closer to Din, the heat of his body starting to radiate through your clothes. Your next breath hitched at the sensation and your eyes automatically tried to see his face even in the pitch dark to no avail. Din’s hand shifted slightly, pulling your face closer to his own, you could feel his breath on your lips. You couldn’t help the quirk of a smile at the sensation, for it was the same one you had been dreaming about for so many nights, but this was real and you were very much awake.

“Can I kiss you?” Din asked, the vulnerability in his voice making you forget about your nerves.

“Yes,” you breathed out, your voice quiet but loud in the cockpit.

So Din kissed you in the dark cockpit on the Razor Crest. Your eyes fluttered closed as he gently pressed his lips against yours in feather light movements. His lips were warm and dry and slightly chapped but oh so perfect in your opinion. Leaning into the kiss, your arms wrapped around Din’s neck, your hands carding through his hair. It was soft and wavy and so much better than the undefined ideas your brain has filled in when you had been dreaming.

A low growl came deep from him that had you trembling and made heat coiled in your stomach. He pulled you in closer, as close as the beskar would allow. The rough scratch of facial hair against your skin caused you to gasp, it burned slightly, but it was part of him and you loved it. Before you knew it you opened to him, his mouth was hot and you only could describe the taste of his mouth as being Din and his taste was addicting.

You both emptied of all the longing that had been stored up and held onto so closely the past few weeks into each other. Both giving and taking it in kind until the longing was replaced with a steadier feeling.

Eventually separating to breathe, Din rested his forehead against yours again as you both gasped for air. His hands splayed large at the small of your back, grounding you in his touch.

“Is this slow?” you joked, still a bit breathless. 

His hands ghost up and down your back before settling at your sides causing you to shiver and then turn warm.

“I guess not,” Din snorted even as he kept you close, nuzzling his nose against your cheek and nose. His broad fingers now raced up the line of your neck to cradle your face. The familiar circles being drawn with his thumb became a new constant grounding motion for the both of you.

This time you were the one pulling Din in for a kiss as your hands continued to play with the gentle waves of his hair. The kiss was softer than the previous one, a tender exploration now that first flush, of what had bordered on desperation, had started to recede. He sucked gently on your bottom lip and hummed in satisfaction when the sensation pulled a tiny, desperate, whimper from you. Heat curled in your stomach again, your hands automatically gripped his hair tighter. He seemed to like that for he partly collapsed into you with a groan, his face nuzzling into the crook of your neck, his breath a warm caress.

“You okay?” you asked, bemused as you continue to card through his hair.

“Maker…I don’t…I don’t know if I want to…take the longest nap with you doing that or if I want to take you to my bed right now.” Din mumbled into your skin, sounding just as bemused as you were.

Your body grew hot at his words, heat traveling down your face and onto your neck and chest before you burst into giddy giggles. You could feel the beginning of a rumble of laughter emanating from Din’s chest even though you couldn’t hear it.

The mirth slowly eased from the both of you, leaving a comfortable silence as you continued to mess up and smooth his hair in turns while Din’s hands, sitting warm on your back, kept you pulled as close as possible. Both of you content with just living in this moment rather than rushing into the next one.

“I’m… I’m sorry, too, cyare,” Din said trailing off again for a moment, “for shutting you out, it wasn’t right.” 

“I get that,” you admit, “and I get your worry, I worry when you’re out doing bounty jobs. But…it’s your job and I have to come to terms with that, with you putting yourself in harm's way.”

He sighed and you had the sudden mental image that he was running a hand through his hair for a moment. You wondered if the locks stuck up wildly when he did that.

“We’ll figure it out together,” he conceded.

You reached out blindly and fumble slightly until you found his hand and squeeze it tight, his palms rough but warm on your own.

“Together,” you agreed as he squeezed back.

~*~*~


End file.
